The Ghostly Rider and the Black Horse
by The Wilky Bar Kid
Summary: "The New Adventures of Black Beauty" tv series - The Twist family are awoken during a storm to find a mysterious girl on a black horse outside their Lighthouse. What link does she have to one of the people who live in this strange part of the country?


The wind howled across the round shape of the Lighthouse that stretched up into the storm filled sky. It was a dark and dismal night and everyone in the Lighthouse that was the home of the Twist family found themselves having a difficult night's sleep.

Tony Twist had given up on trying to get to sleep and had crept his way downstairs at 11:30pm being careful not to wake the kids although he was quite sure they too were anything but asleep. How could anyone sleep with this weather blowing in from the sea?

"At least tomorrow's a Saturday," he murmured to himself thankful that he wouldn't have to go through the routine of forcing three young zombies into the back of the family Land Rover in order to get them to school. He walked into the kitchen and flicked down the switch on the kettle to warm some water for some sweet hot chocolate that always helped with getting to sleep.

As the steam blew from the nozzle he switched it off and lifted it up to pour the water into his World's Best Dad mug that Linda had got for him on Father's Day. As it poured into the mug something startled him causing him to almost spill the hot water over the basin. It was a sound he could only liken to a horse neighing outside.

Linda had heard the sound also and bolted upright from her bed just as the room flashed with lightning. She tried to put it to the back of her mind as something she had imagined and began to lay back down on her bed.

There it was again!

She shot back up and clambered over her bed to rush towards the window. Through the rain stained glass she peered down from where she thought the sound had come from. There was nothing except the pools of water that had appeared through accumulated rainfall.

A flash of lightning lit up the ground once more. Startled, she could have sworn she saw the outline of a horse with a rider on its back. She ran across her bedroom and flung the door open to find Bronson and Pete making their way down the winding stair case.

"Did you hear that too?" asked Pete.

"There's someone out there on a horse!" she declared.

"Cool, a cowboy!" jeered Bronson.

"There's no cowboys around here!" said Pete cocking his nose up.

"There are too!" protested Bronson. "Dad says that builder, Mr. Fredericks, is a cowboy all the time."

"That's not the same thing, idiot!" replied Pete.

Linda left her room and began walking down the stairs followed closely by Bronson and Pete. Once they reached the bottom they found their father peering through the small window by the kitchen sink.

"Dad!" called out Linda.

"Go back to sleep kids," said Tony who took a sip from his hot chocolate while still looking outside.

"Did you see the person on the horse?" asked Linda hoping she hadn't been the only one.

"What?" replied Tony without thinking.

"Linda saw a Cowboy!" said Bronson excitedly.

"There are no Cowboys! How many times?" snarled a tired Pete.

The four Twists were suddenly hushed to silence as the room echoed with the sound of a horse neighing loudly outside. There was no doubt anymore. They had all heard it.

"Stay here a minute," said Tony putting his mug down and walking to the door.

"No way!" screamed Bronson. "I want to see the Cowboy."

Both Linda and Pete were themselves drawn to disobey their father as they followed Bronson across the room to the door. Tony tried to push them back but they weren't having any of it and as he opened the door Bronson slipped by and raced through the now open door. Tony, Linda and Pete were so busy concentrating on the youngest Twist they didn't take the opportunity to take a look outside.

"Wow!" gasped Bronson who had.

The three of them, intrigued by what Bronson had seen, looked on and each one of their jaws dropped in shock at the sight of a brilliant black horse with a white patch on his head just above his eyes. Sat upon the back of the stallion was a young girl with long blond hair wearing an old fashioned cape covering her upper body. What was more remarkable about the sight that was before them however was that as the horse slowly walked forward with its rider the air around them became dry and free of the storm. In fact the girl seemed totally oblivious to the terrible weather.

"Hello!" she called out to them huddled in the doorway. Her voice was clear and quite posh sounding even over the sound of wind and rain.

"Um…" stuttered Tony. "Hello."

"I haven't seen you around here before," the girl called out. "My name is Vicky. Have you lived here long?"

"Uh, about a year," said Pete.

"Really!" gasped Vicky. "That's incredible. You've been here all this time and I haven't seen you before."

"That's a cool horse!" said Bronson with his eyes beaming at the sight of it.

"Cool?" asked Vicky unsure of the meaning of the term. "He's quite warm actually. His name is Beauty. I'd love to stay and talk but I'd better go home. There's a storm coming tonight."

"Coming?" said Pete puzzled at the weather that was lashing the ground around them.

"Uh yeah of course," said Pete whose paternal instincts seemed to be kicking in.

"Good bye!" called out Vicky as she waved. "Come on Beauty."

The horse and rider suddenly rushed forwards and around the opposite side of the Lighthouse. Despite the rain the family rushed out to watch her leave but when they got to the other side she was gone.

"Alright, everybody get back inside or you'll catch your death," said Tony herding his three children back in the Lighthouse and out of the weather. "Bronson! That means you too. Come on!"

For the next few days the Twists hardly talked about the ghostly experience they had shared. It was as if each of them had the same bizarre dream and that it was little more than that. The days following the event turned to weeks and before long six months had gone by.

"Welcome friends, citizens and loyal voters!" boomed the voice of Frank Gribble from the loudspeakers lining his Toyota Land Cruiser. "Welcome to the town's annual village heritage fair."

"This is the first time, Frank," shot Nell. "How can it be annual if we've never had one before?"

Frank put on his politician's smile, a smile akin to a demented Vampire, and replied as politely as he could, "Ah yes but when I am elected Senator I shall make it an annual event so that we don't forget the proud history of our town by the sea."

Linda walked up and down the various stalls that lined the fair. Some had games that could be played or memorabilia that could be bought while a few did have old photographs and other items from the town's history. It was at one such stall she found a collection of old photographs of a small farm. The photographs had stained over time but they could still be made out.

One such photograph was of a small family of people standing outside the front of the farmhouse. There was a young man in his early twenties, an older looking gentleman with a big white beard who stood beside a middle aged woman whose hair was up in a bun and a young girl standing next to a black horse.

Linda's mouth fell open in shock as she recognized the young girl and the black horse. They were the ones they had seen that night in the storm.

"Ah hello Linda," said her teacher, Ralph Snapper, as he walked up to her. "Admiring my old family photographs I see."

"Your family, sir?" asked Linda. Snapper nodded proudly. "Sir, who is this girl next to the horse?"

"Oh! That's my great grandmother Victoria. She came to live here at the turn of the century with her stepmother Jenny. That's her there! She was the town vet. Standing next to her is her father, Dr. Gordon, and that on the end is Manfred. He was a farm hand but became one of the family after a while, as such things happen of course. Um, why do you ask?"

"Just…curious sir," said Linda thinking it best not to reveal their ghostly encounter with his great grandmother and her beautiful black horse.


End file.
